Episode Jackal
by Sunset-Peril
Summary: "I should've left when I had the chance, maybe I could have prevented this fate. Maybe I could have saved myself." Everyone knows about Infinite, the masked murderer for the Eggman Empire, but no one knows the Infinite behind the mask, the one who tragically lost his fiancee, teammates, purpose; EVERYTHING. This is the true story of the deaths of the Jackal Squad Mercenaries.
1. Welcome to My World

They see me as a **monster**. A monster worthy of nothing but **death**.

Ok, I can see why they might think that.

I have waged war against this world, but I have lost one too.

When people look at me, they see this metal face, a solitary yellow eye embedded in red, and they see only the horrors against them;

**Never** the horrors against **me**.

They think they've seen the worst that war has to offer, but they themselves are not truly pure.

I have lost everyone I loved to them, my heart **stabbed** and **cemented** with the empty, soulless eyes of my **everything**, my everyone, yet they, and you if you feel yourselves cursed to have met me, you all think so highly of your organizations, your petty struggle for **light** in this bloody apocalypse, that you are **ignorant** to the **blood** you have **stained** my fur with, you and they have numbed me with your own hate, and by destruction of the world we both call home, I have turned back to you with a weapon even your **mind** cannot escape.

I hurt others to end my pain... the pain cause by **YOU**, in your own disbelief, your mind is too closed to see the **LIVING CREATURE** under this mask that has **FEELINGS** that you experience too, I am like you, yet you seek to destroy me anyway, and I can see why.

The ones who have met me have never thought

_'Hey, I want that guy as my friend'_ But instead, when looking at the numbers from this war, have thought endlessly,

_'Who can I get to kill this guy?'_

What numbers? The number of people I've **killed**. I have turned the world into an **apocalypse**. A deadly place of **no return**. I fight for an empire that I have no say in, no control over, and the truth is that I, the sadistic warlord, the killer of millions, **I** am scarred.

Too scarred to leave this burning cataclysm.

I should've left when I had the chance, maybe I could have prevented this fate, this time of reckoning.

Maybe I could have saved **myself**.

As I look back, I see that the one I serve **ruined** me; **destroyed** my life, yet I serve and kill with no regret, and no second thoughts. I am **nothing** more that the robots that I command, the robots that have no understanding of life. And they are willing to take lives without a thought.

No one knows the past truth, just the present horror.

Who am I?

Though you might not understand, though you may never understand,

**I am Infinite.**


	2. The Squad I Call Home

**About a 2 and a half years before the events of Sonic Forces, about 2 years before Episode Shadow**

**Infinite- Age 26**

My name is Infinite, but I am known to all thieves and law-breakers as The Ultimate Mercenary. I lead a criminal squad called the Jackal Squad, my image to all is fearsome, I can kill in an instant with my sword; this is my life. It has to be. I would not be alive right now if it wasn't. The image of a mercenary is tough and cruel, you always have to be open to do someone's dirty work, to steal, or to kill.

Especially when you're the Ultimate Mercenary. If you don't do the work, you're not a mercenary, and can't survive in this barren landscape we call home. It's part desert, and part canyon, the perfect home for us 'Dirty Rotten Thieves'. You are abandoned young, an unofficial law, and forced to keep yourself alive from that moment on, only the best survive, only the strong belong.

"Hey! Captain!"

I turn my head to see one of my squadmates, Hunter the Jackal.

"Heads up!" Hunter then threw his sword at my head, which I caught without flaw.

"You can't kill the ultimate mercenary, Hunter, he kills **you**." I threw his sword back, through I threw it at his chest. Hunter jumped and flipped to catch the blade.

"Careful, you might accidentally hit me."

"Then don't throw it at me." I retaliated.

Hunter just shrugged, spinning the gleaming blade around.

Another of my squadmates, Remy the Jackal, crept up behind Hunter, trying to catch him off guard, but Hunter quickly spun around and met Remy's twisted distorted blade with his own.

"Hah!" Hunter then quickly hit Remy on the head with the barrel of his silver shotgun, causing him to fall on the ground.

"**Hunter**." I snarled sternly. "That's **enough**."

Hunter turned and looked at me, Remy rubbed his head where he had been hit.

"What do you **mean** 'That's enough'?" Hunter replied to me in an offended tone.

"Save your weapons for our enemies."

Hunter chuckled, somewhat playfully. "Or what?"

"Or face me." Amara jumped up and punched Hunter in the chin, she caught his gun as he fell.

"**Blades and axes**, Amara, I was just playing."

Amara smirked. "You aren't just making an excuse because you just got punched by a girl, right?"

"Amara!"

I found a small snicker leave my mouth, and I quickly tensed up to counteract it.

Amara sauntered over to me, the smirk still present on her face, and she looped her sturdy arms around my neck, pulling herself close to me.

I suddenly felt dizzy. I always felt this way when I was close to Amara.

Hunter gave me a part-annoyed and part-teasing look, one that I had learned to read quite easily. It said:

'Wow, you call yourself the "Ultimate Mercenary" but you let her treat you like a common guy, just **wow** Infinite.'

I didn't respond, I just kept diving deeper into Amara's eyes.

Hunter rolled his eyes at us and pushed his hair, a deep, glossy grey, out of his face before standing up. He would rather shoot targets than watch my affair with Amara.

Amara took a few steps, closing our gap all while staring into my different colored eyes, one blue and one yellow. She pressed her lips to mine, cutting off my breath, and everything faded away in an instant.

All I could focus on was her, so worthy of authority and queenship, always so strong and independent proving a girl that had been abandoned at age three could change the world too.

After we broke our kiss I felt so dizzy as if I might pass out, but I didn't care. Amara brought me close to her, keeping me from falling. Hunter and Remy snickered at my reaction, but I had always felt like this around Amara. I brought her close to me so her silver hair and mine collide and tangle as I looked deep into her golden eyes...

Every king needs his queen, right?


	3. Young, But Not Yet Infinite

Back at the base, Gadget was staring out the window of the Rookiez bunkhouse.

"Hey, rookie." Commander Knuckles appeared.

Gadget sighed.

"I know this is kinda rude to say, but this is exactly why I told you not to fall in love." Knuckles said.

Gadget slightly glared at him.

"It's not like I can control falling in love," the wolf snarled.

"I know, I know. I just wanted to tell you, I'm sorry Nadia was extremely injured and that you can visit and stay with her as long as you like."

After hearing this, Gadget perked up and, without thinking, sped out of the bunkhouse.

"Hey! We weren't done yet!" Knuckles shouted.

Gadget paused, quite a distance away already, and yelled "Heh, Sorry!" He walked back to Knuckles.

Knuckles shook his head at the sudden change in the wolf's tone. "Don't you want me to show you where she is?"


	4. Abandoned

After Commander Knuckles showed Gadget where Nadia's room was, a nurse showed them in.

"She lost a lot of blood. She bled almost half to death. We don't know when or if she'll wake up, but you're welcome to stay as long as it doesn't interfere with your war duties, Agent Gadget."

"Ehhh, We'll let him stay here. Woulda done the same with Rose if Eggman hadn't taken Sonic." Knuckles offered. The nurse looked stunned.

"Don't you need all the soldiers you can get?"

This was true.

The surviving soldiers were nothing compared to Eggman's army, and after losing 80% of their soldiers to Infinite, no one wanted to join the Resistance.

Gadget looked at them. "I'll still fight, just, I need to spend some time with Nadia for a bit." the nurse nodded.

"Of course, let me show you her, it's kind of hard to see for the first time, especially since you were just in that bloody battle."

Gadget nodded and walked in.

He gasped.

Tears filled his amber eyes.

Nadia was covered head to toe in blood-soaked bandages. An intensely pained expression frozen on her face. Wires and a breathing tube were the only things keeping her alive.

Gadget collapsed and began to sob, tenderly stroking her folded down ear, as the nurse pulled a blanket over Nadia. Gadget was having a hard time comprehending how, in 10 minutes, Nadia could go from a Rookiez agent, to a soldier heavily injured on the front lines.

He mumbled softly to her, he didn't even know what he was saying.

Commander Knuckles sighed and left.

The room became so quiet that all you could hear was the couple's breathing.


	5. The Jackal Squad

**Another chapter from a very young Infinite... I think y'all get the point about the grammar in these younger chapters by now**

**24 years before Episode Shadow, 24 and a half years before Sonic Forces**

**Infinite- Age 4**

I and Amara had been walkings for a **really** long times. We hads been walking for a whole **two hours**.

Now, the yellow circle that sat in the white and blue above my head was gone, and a dark blues was now above me and Amara's heads.

Amara looked at the big white circle in the dark blues and yawned. "We needs to find somewhere to sleeps." She told me, then began climbings up a **big** brown thing, Amara had called it a rock earlier, before looking downs at me. "Need some helps?" She asked me.

"Maybes." I told hers back, trying to climb ups the rock. I felt her grabs my paw, and she pulleds me ups.

"I gotcha." Amara pulleds me up to where the rock was as flat as where we weres a whole minute agos. "We stay here. We safe up here, Infinite."

I laid down near where the wall started to go up agains, so did she, so the big mercenaries didn't thinks we were targets. We stayed that ways until the yellow circle came back, and we climbed downs.

"We gotta find more little jackals, like us." Amara saids to me.

"Whys?"

"The more jackals we haves, the tougher we can bes. I'll show yous." She quickly turned and jumped on me.

"Amara! Be carefuls with my face! It still hurts!" I squealed at her.

"Try to get mes off!" She giggleds. I waved my paws, trying to get hers off, for a whiles, until I hit hers and she went off my little body. "You be tough, Infinite! See how awesome we can bes if we have a bunch of us?!" Amara bounced around excitedly.

I giggleds too. "Yeah!" I posed like a big, tough jackal. "We be awesome!" We climbed all overs each other for a while, shoving each other offs, until we saws a tiny pair of eyes.

"Who is yous?" I asked the tiny eyes, another little jackal appeared.

"I is Hunter." The little jackal replied.

"I is Infinite." I replieds.

"I is Amara." Amara also told him.

Hunter waveds a bit at us. "Do you has squad?" Hunter asked me and Amara.

"Yes." I tolds him.

"Can I join? I is good fighter."

"How goods of fighter?" Amara asked.

"How do yous want me to prove it?"

Amara lookeds ats me. "How do we want him to prove that he's tough enough to be a part of squad?"

"Maybe he could come along with us, like he would if we accepts him."

Amara smileds. "I like thats! C'mon Hunter!"

Hunter began to follows me and Amara.

Hunter was rights. He **was** a good fighter. Now I hads three jackals in my squad, Me, Amara and Hunter.

"Do we has a name for this squad?" Hunter askeds.

I thoughts for a bits. "The Jackal Squad." I said proudlys.

"I like thats!" Amara piped.

Hunter jumped in a pouncing form. "Me too! Now lets figures out who's gonna be the boss!" We spent the rest of the day wrestlings and other fighting stuffs.

By the time the big yellow circle was starting to disappears, we had decided on who was the leader.

"You be boss, Infinite!" Amara cheered. "You super tough and strong!" Amara and Hunter were about the same in strongness, so I didn't have a back-up boss.

Amara yawned, tired from all the fightings, and we crawled backs up onto the giant rock and fell asleep. We were three very young jackals, all tryings to survive.

If only we knew what we would become when we got older.


	6. Hired

**20 years before Sonic Forces, 19 and a half years before Episode Shadow**

**Infinite- Age 8**

"Infi-Boss!" Amara came running into my den.

As the squad grew, we moved from the outcropping that Amara and me found two years ago into a larger one, one where we could dig dens into the dirt surrounding it. We now had six jackals, that's a **lot** of mercenaries for me to handle.

Although I've begun to learn how to mask it, I'm really thankful for Amara. I looked up from my sword, which I had stolen from an armory that was experimenting with new weapon technology, and changed my focus to her.

She had begun to mess around with a tougher style, silver hair pulled into a tight ponytail, a red tank top and black pants that went to her knees.

"What do you need, Amara?"

"Some grown guy wants you. Says it's important." Amara placed one of her hand on her hips and leaned in that direction, her thug undertone becoming more apparent as she got older.

I walked towards her, pushing the pile of assorted fabrics that made my sleeping area closer to the back wall. "Got your blade?"

"As always." She smiled as she motioned to the sharp dagger attached to a belt on her hips.

"Alright then, let's see what this guy wants." Amara led me to where the others were.

"I suppose you're the leader of this mangy group?" A snarling voice met me as I walked onto the outcropping.

"Who wants me?"

Amara snarled a little and pointed to a grown wolf, black with yellow eyes, who had Hunter climbing on him, seeing if he posed a threat to me.

"Hunter! Off!" The words boomed from my mouth.

He dropped to the ground as soon at the words reached him.

The wolf looked at me, his cold yellow eyes providing anything but a welcome. "You're the so-called Infinite, I assume?"

I stood taller, trying to keep him from treating me like a child. "I am."

He chuckled, snarls vibrating with his amusement. "I see." His snarling chuckle continued. "Your reputation and crime record are bigger than you are…. I expected someone older."

"That a compliment," I motioned for Amara and the others to prepare their weapons. "or a threat?"

A look of surprise flickered on his face as if he didn't expect children to be holding daggers, swords and loaded guns. "Children, please!" He slowly pushed Hunter's gun down with the tip of his finger then looked at Amara, dagger still raised to strike.

The newer members of my squad, Quickstrike and Marauder, kept their weapons out too; they both wielded axes.

My squad had every right to point their weapons at the older criminal, since he was in our territory, but he seemed appalled that we drew them in his presence.

"Do you want a job or not?!"

* * *

We followed the wolf, Reznor was his name, out of Bloodpool Canyon.

I felt a bit unsettled as we got increasingly closer to civilizations, where the chance that we could be arrested and separated skyrocketed.

Amara snarled, louder this time, as we continued to follow Reznor. "Why do you think that we're being brought close to people?"

"Maybe our job is out here."

Reznor entered a clearing where a fire had burned recently, covered in dead vegetation.

A red she-wolf with short hair, a spiked choker and a bloodstained blade sat on a burnt log. She stood up once she saw us approach. "Reznor!" Her voice was vicious and cruel. "You take forever to get some decent mercenaries and then you bring me kids?! You're such an idiot!" She slapped him hard, Hunter snickered behind me.

"Clawzie. I asked our proven contact and he said that these kids are going to be a force to be reckoned with as they grow. I was just as displeased as you when I met them."

The wolf named Clawzie snarled, blade shimmering in the burnt landscape, the light bright in my eyes. "Then **why** didn't you bring someone else?!"

"The contact told me to get these kids, I got these kids!"

"Well they better be good…" She looked towards us, turning her blaring voice our direction. "Which one of you worthless furballs is supposedly in charge?!"

I snarled as Amara clenched her fists.

We were **not** worthless!

Reznor pointed at me, almost like he was accusing me. "That one. The male with the scarred face and different colored eyes."

"His name is Infinite!" Amara stood in front of me, snarling at Clawzie and Reznor.

Clawzie's face gleamed with all her cruel beauty. "Oh, how sweet, the little female's protecting him…."

Her voice, up until that moment in the sentence, was dripping with sarcasm and held a light-hearted tone, but her voice went back to its original, harsh attitude in the middle of her thought. "Just wait till he gets older, you won't mean much more to him than the kids you produce. You won't be the only female he claims either."

It was my turn to protect Amara, but I knew that fighting against the wolves wouldn't end well for us. I also wasn't sure what exactly she was talking about, so there goes trying to talk back. I stepped out in front of my squad and looked straight at Clawzie, appearing to be unafraid. "I was told you had a job for us?"

She smiled, seeing that our little fight hadn't distracted me. "Of course, get your little group together and we'll talk."

I turned around and motioned the others to come, Amara seemed both delighted in my actions and annoyed.

"Why didn't you fight back?" She muttered, snarling. "There's only two of them and six of us!"

"It wouldn't work, Mara, they've been committing crimes for years, longer than we've been alive."

"So?"

"We're not going to win a fight between them and us, not yet at least." I sat down in front of another burnt log where Clawzie had sat down with Reznor.

"First off, we'd like to train you. This is a very delicate mission that we'd planned for older mercenaries, so you're going to need some training before we send you out."

Reznor pulled out a file and quickly showed it to the Jackal Squad.

Remy's face lit up. "Woah! Picture in a paper-shaped box! But it's not a box!"

Clawzie crossed her arms. "Have you kids seriously not seen a file folder?"

All of us shook our heads.

"You're sure that our contact told you to get these… mutts?"

I crossed my arms. I am not a **mutt**!

She's the mutt!

All of the Squad began muttering to each other, our young voices mixing as we whispered.

I stood up, they joined me as we looked at Clawzie. "If you're not going to do anything but insult us, we'll be going."

It was a bold move.

They could lash out at us, hurt us badly.

People might not want to hire us if we walk away from an offer.

Clawzie bit her lip; it was obviously hard for her to say something that wasn't an insult.

We had just begun to turn our backs and walk off when she spoke.

"Well if you want to learn rare skills and techniques, you'll stay."

I turned around, signaled the others to stop, then looked at her. "Now we're getting someplace..." The Jackal Squad nodded at each other, then nodded at me.

"whatcha got to teach us?"


End file.
